


it's not all that bad in the moonlight

by theappleppielifestyle



Series: Avengers at Hogwarts and Other Misadventures [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:19:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce's friends have been drawing away from him in the past few weeks.</p><p>After the full moon, six teenagers wake up in the woods: one werewolf, and five newly-turned unregistered Animagi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not all that bad in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this series is going to be EVERYWHERE, yo.

Up until recently, Bruce’s favourite subject had been Potions.

No, scratch that. His favourite subject is still Potions, will always be Potions, his other classes don’t even compare. There’s nothing like seeing the limits Bruce can push; the discoveries that only turn out badly half of the time, the ideas that make him get up in the middle of the night to write them down.

So, Potions is still his favourite subject. But nowadays- nowadays, Potions class isn’t so fun anymore, because out of all his classes, his friends avoid him the most in Potions. For the past few weeks, his friends have taken to having hushed discussions that taper out as soon as they notice Bruce is there; traded glances that they try not to let Bruce notice. They’ve been making excuses to leave together, and ‘forgetting’ to invite him places, and while Bruce accepts that they don’t want to hurt his feelings, he’d appreciate it if they were more up front about it.

Potions class is where it’s the most prominent. Ravenclaw shares this class with Gryffindor, so Bruce and Tony usually pair up with Steve and Thor, but lately it’s been Thor, Steve and Tony with their heads bent together, whispering as far away as they can get from Bruce without leaving the table.

After ten minutes of this, Bruce is forced to nudge Tony’s elbow. Tony startles from where he’s been bent over a book on herbs, scribbling furiously as he hissed something at Steve.

“Sorry,” Bruce says. “I needed the newt. For the potion,” he says, not bothering to hint on the fact that they should all probably be working on their own potion, which from what Bruce can see, consists of an empty cauldron and a shredded draccon root, which is only shredded because Steve fiddles with things when he’s nervous.

Distractedly, Tony says, “What, right, yeah,” and moves his elbow so Bruce can get his hand around the bottle of newt’s… something. Bruce thinks its blood. Possibly tears. Potions never fail to be full of animal bodily fluids that don’t seem like they’d be pleasant to collect. Five minutes ago, Bruce had added a vial of dragon sperm. Yeesh.

“Thanks,” Bruce tells him, and goes back to stirring his potion. He measures out a teaspoon of newt’s blood- it is blood, he was right the first time- and carefully puts it in, stirring clockwise like the book tells him to.

When the whispering starts up again, Bruce tries not to notice. He assumes they’re talking about the next thing they’re not going to invite him to.

The week passes the same way: Natasha and Tony avoid him when Slytherin joins Ravenclaw for Care of Magical Creatures. They stand off to the side, ignoring the unicorns, their heads lowered. When Hufflepuff joins Ravenclaw for History of Magic, Clint and Tony argue softly about something that Bruce tries not to listen to.

When they all sit in the halls- a side effect of being best friends with people who can’t sit in each other’s common rooms due to being from varying houses- their conversation with Bruce is wooden, stilted. They don’t invite him out later to watch Thor, Steve and Natasha practice Quidditch, which has always been something Bruce looked forward to.

Steve gives him a squeeze on the shoulder as they leave, though- Steve has always been one of the kindest of their group. Bruce guesses he feels bad about slowly pushing him out.

 

 

 

It goes on like this for another three weeks, Bruce slowly pulling away as the others continue to whisper together, and finally Bruce doesn’t even bother replying when they do talk to him, which isn’t often. He starts walking to class alone, doesn’t answer in more than a few syllables when Tony talks to him as they’re getting ready for bed, and all in all trains himself how to be alone again.

It shouldn’t be as hard as it is.

 

 

 

The day of the full moon, as always, consists of Bruce gritting his teeth through classes and finally getting Professor Hill to excuse him from History of Magic so he can rest.

He breathes through his teeth the whole day, and usually Tony or Natasha or any of the others would be there to joke feebly or distract him from it or pretend like everything is normal, but he passes Tony and doesn’t answer when Tony asks him how he’s doing.

He goes to bed, stays there until dinner, which he doesn’t eat. Then he takes the usual route out of the castle, trying not to stumble as he does- it’s getting darker later than usual, but Bruce can still feel it through the fading light.

He walks the winding path to the Shrieking Shack, ducks under the wire fence, half-sprints, half-stumbles to the door and locks himself in. He takes the stairs two at a time, shaking already, and reaches the master bedroom just in time to fall to his knees.

In the silence of the house, his ragged breathing is the loudest thing in the universe. He sucks in hard, and it comes out on a pained gasp as the transformation starts.

He’s dully aware of his teeth elongating in his mouth, of his limbs starting to become bulkier, of his bones cracking and then shifting, and the howl rips from his throat right before he blacks out.

 

 

 

 

Bruce wakes up and closes his eyes immediately after, covering them with a hand for good measure to block out the sun. He grumbles nonsense for a few seconds before freezing- _sunlight_. All the windows in the Shrieking Shack are blacked out.

He bolts up, heart racing, only to have a hand land on his shoulder and Tony’s voice behind him saying, “Whoa, calm down, Brucie.”

Bruce whirls, blinking wildly to clear the spots from his eyes- he’s in the forest, there are dead leaves and the trees around him are all slashed, and his friends are all standing- or sitting, or lying- around him. Not dead. Not even injured. Just- very, very dirty.

“What,” he manages, staring over at Tony, who is looking nervous. “What the hell- are you-”

“We’re fine,” Steve cuts him off, and oh, his scarf his ripped, Bruce knows for a fact his mother worked overtime to pay for that scarf. “Bruce, we’re fine. Really.”

“How,” Bruce croaks. He accepts the clothes that are held out to him, and fights down his blush, dressing quickly on autopilot as he waits for an answer.

“Yeah,” Tony says, shifting side to side on the spot, his fingers worrying at his robes. “Well. You see, I’m a genius, right? And geniuses do genius things. Like, say, engineer a spell to turn five teenagers into unregistered Animagi.”

Bruce stares, stopping halfway on his shirt buttons. Blinks. Stares for about another ten seconds at Tony, then at Steve, then at everyone around him, all of whom are smeared in dirt and leaves, but all of whom are very much alive and not maimed in the least.

“WHAT,” he says, too loud for this time in the morning, and Tony winces.

“Did I mention we’re fine? Steve did. Steve mentioned it. We’re fine, seriously,” he says, taking Bruce by the shoulder, but Bruce staggers back, away from it.

He looks around, breath tight and high in his throat, gaze darting from one person to the other as it starts to come back to him. He remembers the moonlight, remembers it lighting his veins on fire, setting him alight and making him roar upwards. Remembers a figure entering the room on four legs, then another, and another with two legs and wings, and remembers the wolf inside him wanting to snap at them, claw them open. Wanting to turn them over to expose their bellies and dig in.

He had almost done it, he knows. He had charged, but the animal in front had dodged, and a warm head had slunk past him and butted his flank. Soft. Comforting.

“Jesus shit, you’re a fucking leopard,” Bruce blurts, eyes on Tony again.

Tony makes a face. “Black panther, thank you VERY much.”

“Golden… retriever,” Bruce says, looking towards Steve, and then barks out a laugh. “Oh, god.”

“What,” Steve says, disgruntled but obviously trying not to be, due to Bruce’s mental breakdown or whatever.

“You and him. Fight like cats and dogs. Oh my god, it’s so perfect.”

That earns him stifled laughter from Natasha and outright laughter from Thor and Clint, all of whom Steve and Tony glare at.

Bruce turns, facing the rest of the circle.

“Hawk,” he says, pointing at Clint.

“Cooper’s,” Clint nods, and Bruce remembers a shadow overhead, swooping to perch beside him on a branch, cocking its head at him.

Bruce looks towards Thor. “Uh. Goat?”

“We are not entirely sure,” Thor says, merrily trying to rub dirt out of his hair and only grinding it further into his scalp. “I do know it had horns! And the hooves were most fun to run on.”

From behind Bruce, Tony clears his throat. “Yeah, Thor and Nat were kind of a mishmash of… stuff. Thor is goat-ish, Natasha’s-”

“A lizard… dragon… thing,” Bruce says lamely, blinking at Natasha, who has her arms crossed as she smiles idly. “That’s… appropriate?”

“Thanks,” Natasha says, her lips quirking further, and Bruce remembers something curling around Clint’s neck, nestling deep in his feathers, coming out to flick a tail towards the others occasionally.

The wind kicks up, making them all shiver, but Bruce hardly notices. He welcomes it, even, not bothering to pull his robes tighter around him, instead staring around at his stupid friends who are dumb enough to become unregistered Animagi because Bruce happens to turn into a monster once a month.

“Not a monster,” Steve says determinedly, and Bruce realizes he’s said the last bit out loud. “And personally, I kind of like you as a wolf, Bruce.”

Tony says, “It’s certainly an improvement to how he usually looks,” and Bruce smiles reluctantly as Steve shoves his shoulder against his.

“You’re crazy,” Bruce says weakly. “All of you. Crazy.”

Tony shrugs. His smile doesn’t even falter. “Wanted to keep you company, Banner.”

“Crazy,” Bruce echoes again, unsure he has it in him to say anything else, and he thinks he says it a few more times before Clint is looping an arm around his shoulder, announcing loudly that they should all get back to the castle and get cleaned up before everyone realizes they snuck out.

“Too late for that,” Natasha says, brushing her robes free of leaves and thanking Thor when he picks one out of her hair. “There’s no way we can make it to the castle, shower, have breakfast and then get to class in time.”

“Then we don’t shower. Or eat.”

“I’d like to be at least slightly amicable today, Clint,” Natasha says, combing her fingers through her hair and worrying at the knots. “Remember how I was after we pulled that all-nighter to practice our charmwork?”

Clint swings his wand at his side. “What, how you totally slept with your eyes open during Fury’s speech? So creepy, by the way.”

“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” Steve sighs. “Mom’s going to send a Howler if I get another detention.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony pauses to coax a twig out of his fringe before sweeping it out of the way, “That’s nothing to what Ms. Rogers will send me. The woman writes me letters to see how I’m doing, but every time you get detention she assumes I’m part of it.”

“You usually are,” Steve reminds him.

“I’m offended.”

“Oh, _that_ offends you. Finally, we’ve reached a point where Tony Stark is offended.”

“Offended and hurt,” Tony continues, reaching up to adjust his tie and making a face when he sees how entirely torn to shit it is. “Hey, Nat?”

“What?”

“You have a spare in your pocket, right? I had a fifty-fifty chance of being in Slytherin, anyway. I’ll tell everyone Fury got the Hat to reconsider.”

“I’m not giving my spare tie to you, and that has literally never happened, ever.”

“There has literally never been a bunch of teenage Animagi running around Hogwarts with a werewolf,” Tony shoots back. “Yet here we are, walking through the woods at dawn with said werewolf.”

This starts up another argument with Steve, and Bruce thinks back to the sleek panther, its limbs liquid and dark, running side by side with a golden retriever and rubbing his head against the dog’s side when they finally stopped. Bruce thinks life at Hogwarts would be a lot easier if Tony would just walk up to Steve one day and started rubbing his head on Steve. It would at least cause the Steve And Tony Bet to finally come to an end after five years of this crap.

On the far side of Bruce, Thor is ambling, head tipped up and one hand shielding his face from the sun, his free hand in his pocket as he walks. Natasha breaks away from her soft conversation with Clint to tell Thor that if he trips and falls because he’s not paying attention to the ground, none of them are helping him up.

 _Crazy_ , Bruce thinks to himself, and grins.


End file.
